Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

Sweet. Still one of my favorite things in any class ever.

Man now I want to take grad complex next semester.

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

[ QUOTE ]
Sweet. Still one of my favorite things in any class ever.

Man now I want to take grad complex next semester.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's why I fell in love with complex analysis.

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

[ QUOTE ]
This student scored 2.5% on today's midterm. I have no idea what to do. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

That midterm came up quickly after what was presumably the first graded assignment. Having the first graded assignment this close to the midterm is not a good idea as you probably just figured out.

At this point, it's probably impossible for the student to pass the class, right? You can't really be giving students second shots at exams unless you feel the exam was unfair and then you need to extend that amnesty to the whole class. The only thing left to do is advise the student to withdrawl. It's probably far too late for a no penalty withdraw, and it's up to you and your school's policies if you want to give him a "withdraw failing" or a "withdraw passing."

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

Hey, sorry guys this is also a bit OT... but it seems like a lot of math people are reading this thread and I don't want to fail my midterm tomorrow =P.

My midterm is on the convergence/divergence of infinite sequences and series. This is the last part of the solution which uses l'hopital's to find out if the sequence converges. Mostly this is a question concerning the differentiation of ln. Does anyone know the math that converts the ln part of the top right of the pic to what shows up in the brackets on the bottom left?

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4278/math4un.jpg

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

The first day of class was Sept. 29. Their first assignment was due Oct. 6. I graded it the evening of Oct. 12. Their first midterm was yesterday, Oct. 26. We are on a quarter system here at UCLA and the quarter ends around Dec. 7. As you can see, time flies by very quickly; students are aware and adjusted to this.

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

The derivative of ln x is 1/x. The derivative of ln f(x) is f'(x) / f(x) (by the chain rule).

Therefore, with f(x) =(x-1)/x = 1 - 1/x we have f'(x) = 1/x^2 so that (ln f(x))' = (1/x^2) / (1 - 1/x).

I can elaborate on the rest of the solution if needed.

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

the instructor gave you a very good note and let you know exactly what you have to do to excel in his class. That's his job. Holding your hand, is not.

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

Ah, that makes sense now, thank you. I had the 1 - (1/n) in the denominator as just 1 - n (flipped upside down... yeah... stupid mistake). You should definately start teaching at UCD, when it rains it doesn't burn [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

Where is Davis?

Re: A quick question for college students about encouragment
 

lol. i think this one was a bit over your head...